Harry's Troubles
by Summerkins
Summary: Harry's troubles with his Uncle reach a new level....OotP spoilers (towards the end) and sever angest and tradedy for Ron and Hermonie


**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the characters/locations in this story ... it is a FANfiction...right so I don't own em J.K. Rowling dose.

**Pairing(s): **Implied Ron/Hermonie...kinda

**Key: **o-o-o-o Scene shift

**Comments:** This was also for Carrie's writing contest... the topic was 'The death of your favorite character' but since my fav characters are Remus and Sirius, and Sirius is...well...dead...for the time being at least... and I've already killed Remus in a fic I've done this...hope you like it to a certain extent at least...I was crying my eyes out as I wrote...

* * *

Harry Potter sat in front of the window in his room at number 4 Privet drive. He stroked Hedwig's feathers slowly his eyes staring unseeingly out the window. He held his right arm close to his chest, wincing slightly when he moved it. It was September 1st. He should be on the train on the way to Hogwarts at this moment, but he wasn't. Instead he was stuck at the Dursley's. He wondered how long it'd last.

o-o-o-o

Hermonie Granger sat with Ron Weasley in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express. Ron stood and started pacing again. "We need to do something 'Monie..." he said for the 5th time since they left the platform 10 minutes ago.

She massaged her temples with her fingertips then said wearily, "Why don't you send Pig off with a letter to McGonagall?"

Ron stopped his pacing and stared at her. "Why in bloody hell didn't I think of that?" He exclaimed before dashing over to his trunk to find a quill and parchment. He quickly scrawled a note then attached it too Pig's leg and opening the window threw him out. "Now...we just have to wait." Ron said and started pacing again.

o-o-o-o

Professor Minerva McGonagall was sitting at her desk in her office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, when a small owl flew in through her open window. She reached up and grabbed it then pulled the letter off its leg. Quickly she scanned the letter and her eyes widened in shock and fear. She quickly stood and hurried off to the Headmaster's office.

"Albus!" McGonagall said as she entered Dumbledore's office.

He looked up at her, "What is it Minerva?"

"This!" she said and pushed the letter to him. He picked it up and read it quickly.

_Professor,_

_Hermonie and I are worried. Harry didn't get on the train today and we haven't heard from him since his birthday. Hermonie suggested I send Pig on to you with a letter informing you so that you could do whatever is necessary to insure to his safety._

_Ron Weasley._

Dumbledore put the note down slowly and looked at McGonagall again. "What are we going to do?" she asked.

"Someone has to go after him."

o-o-o-o

Harry stiffened at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, and flinched when the door to his bedroom slammed open. "BOY!" Uncle Vernon bellowed, and Harry turned around and looked at him, his right arm still held close to his body. "Get your ass over here NOW!" Harry stood and walked over to his uncle his arm still held close.

Vernon backhanded Harry and he stumbled back a few paces bringing his left hand up to his face and feeling his lip, which was now swollen. "You can't do anything to me boy." Vernon was saying going on again about the Degree of Underage Wizardry kept Harry from using magic to defend himself with out the risk of being expelled. "Your freaky friends are back at that freak show school of yours and they don't give a shit about you."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "They do too care!"

"Oh really? Then why haven't they written to you since your birthday? Why aren't they sending and owls here with letter asking where you are?"

Harry just glared at him, refusing to admit he'd been wondering the same thing.

"Well? Answer me boy! If they care so much why haven't they done anything?" Vernon asked and grabbed the front of Harry's overlarge sweatshirt and lifted him up by it. Harry struggled against his uncle's hold but to no avail. He looked up and spat at him, hitting Vernon right in the eye.

Vernon gave a yell and threw Harry across the room when he hit the wall hard and slid down his head sagging down as he slipped into unconsciousness. He was forced awake by some smelling salts under his nose then had the wind kicked out of him by Vernon's foot. Then he was lifted by his shirt again and thrown against the wall crying out as he felt something in his back break. Then all faded to black.

o-o-o-o

Ron and Hermonie sat around Harry's bed in the hospital wing back at Hogwarts. Hermonie had silent tears rolling down her cheeks as she looked at him laying there still so close to death even now, a week after he'd been rescued by McGonagall from number 4 Privet Drive. Ron just sat there staring off into space, so pale that his freckles stood out so vividly they looked almost like angry red scars. They only left his bedside when Madam Pomfrey shooed them off to bed. But they were back the next morning again sitting next to him offering what little support they could. The day after Harry had been brought in the Ginny, Neville, Seamus, and Dean came up and sat with Ron and Hermonie for a while.

It was all over the school. Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, had been beaten to near death by his Muggle Uncle, and was hovering near death. The only students allowed to see him were those closest to him, the Weasley's and Hermonie Granger.

o-o-o-o

Harry looked around his face broke into a wide grin as he saw Sirius at the end of the hallway, standing with his parents. Harry couldn't help but smile as he ran down the length of the hall to them, not yet fully aware what was happening. He just knew he was with people who cared about him, people who would never hurt him.

(A/N: this is Harry letting go...)

o-o-o-o

Back at the hospital wing Hermonie Granger sobbed harder then ever as she and Ron held Harry's hands trying, hoping against hope that he'd wake up not wanting to accept the grief that filled their hearts when Madam Pomfrey checked his pulse on the 3rd week after being rescued and found none.

o-o-o-o

On the day of the funeral all of the students from Hogwarts filed into the Great Hall where they would all say their final goodbyes The Boy Who Lived. Both Ron and Hermonie had been asked to give a speech about Harry.

Hermonie went first, walking up to the podium and looking out to all the sad faces in the crowd, her voice broke slightly as she began, "Harry Potter was a boy like none other. Everyone knows him for defeating Lord Voldemort when he was just a baby, and again this past summer, beating him once and for all. But those who knew him best, as Harry, just Harry, not Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Defeated-The-Dark-Lord, but as a regular boy who had been raised by Muggles and then been thrown into the world of wizardry at age 11. I met him for the first time on the Hogwarts Express our first year. It wasn't until Halloween time when he and Ron Weasley helped save my life from a mountain troll, in the girl's lavatory that we actually became friends. The three of us became fast friends after that and Ron and I helped Harry with a lot of things, getting to the Sorcerer's Stone in our first year, helping him prepare for the Triwizards Tournament in our fourth, helped him with dealing with the loss of his godfather at the end of our 5th year, and his angry outbursts through most of our 5th and 6th years. But it's not any of those things that I remember most about him. It was his personality, his desire to not be famous, but to be a regular kid that I remember most about, my best friend Harry Potter." She walked back down to her seat sobbing softly, and Ron took her place at the podium.

"I really don't think I can top that, with what I had planned to say, so I'm just going to wing it. Harry Potter was my best friend from the first time we met. He almost always put us, Hermonie and I, before him with whatever he could. Harry didn't care for the fame at always came to him. He would have done anything, to not have been the Boy Who Lived, especially since it meant that he lost his parents and had to live with his Muggle aunt and uncle, the uncle who eventually killed him. Harry was like a brother to me...not that I needed another brother, but that he did. Sure we had fights, for the most part it was me, overreacting, from sever jealousy. I know he didn't want all the fame he had... but I was jealous. And right now...looking back on all those times I lost my temper with him and ended up causing a fight...I feel so guilty, for causing him more pain then he deserved. I wish I could just go back in time and change it, but I can't... So I end my speech here, with just one request to you all. Don't remember Harry for the things he did, but for the person he was." Ron pressed his lips together and hurried off the stage to sit down beside Hermonie, wishing that somehow they could change it all, but knowing deep within his heart that it was impossible.


End file.
